One morning I go out to pick wild asters and suddenly it is September at Stillmeadow. I think it is the smell of the air, like wild grapes and windfall apples. I know fall is here, although the world is still green with summer. and I feel an urgency to gather in all the loveliness of the past blazing days and star - cool nights and keep them forever.

From Stillmeadow Calendar

The wind in the sugar maples has a different sound. It is the sound of summer's end. Anyone who has ever heard it would recognize it. I think that if I ever, like a poet, "met a traveler in an antique land," and we talked of homelands, the wind in September in New England might be one mutual pleasure, no matter what the climate.

September wind blows away the fatigue of summer heat, and the listlessness of August weather. It blows away, indeed, the piled up years. It makes the heart young. Going back to school, football games, dancing, falling in love, corn roasts, moonlight rides - so many such things belong to September.
I have always felt that something fine is about to happen. And the fact that winter is on the way is not troubling this early in autumn. Time enough to think of that in October and November, but now it is too soon. First comes the harvest, the last ripening, the splash of zinnia color in the garden, the perfect late golden rose. Yes, a good time to be young, and to relive young days.

Clover and I got greatly excited this morning over a baby owl that was huddled doubtfully in the maple near the house. The mother owl, from a tree near the barn, was trying to persuade her offspring to come with her. she did her best, and on the ground, Clover added to the furore. The baby owl seemed to be a confused sort of person, and he couldn't quite decide to get off the branch and try the deep air.

Clover and I had to go in the house, and when we came out again, both owls were gone. But there was a hummingbird quivering in the perennial border, incredibly bright, and incredibly tiny. We seldom see one, and I wanted to move as close as possible. Above all birds, the hummingbird gives me that feeling of the mystery and the wonder of life. Such a vibrant little body, such color, and wings that beat faster than thought. I felt as if I could watch the whole of life if I could hold a hummingbird in my hand once. But as I stepped softly nearer, a bright unafraid eye seemed to inspect me briefly, the the wings quivered and the bird was gone.
The orioles are gay in the old orchard branches. The swamp is full of birds, but I can't get out in the middle to see them. their liquid notes make the air sweet, and they are all very busy. A beautiful male pheasant came along the stone wall yesterday, stepping proudly and glittering with bronze and purple.
How sweet are the country sounds! Keats was right, as he generally was: "The poetry of earth is never dead. . . .The poetry of earth is ceasing never." The soft tapestry of bird songs come first, then the sound of water running cool under dark branches, the creak of a wagon deep with hay, the fiddling of grasshoppers; all the good country sounds make poetry.

A mad dash after a paper hanger brought me inside a kitchen where soup was being canned. The lady was a big blue - eyed Swedish woman with that open, steady look which real Scandinavians always seem to me to have. The kitchen was sweet with dusk and supper and pails of fresh milk, and the blended odors of soup.
While we visited, Mrs. Larsen went on washing dishes, her hands expert and careful with the worn pans. Now and then she came over to the big range and slid a fresh chink of wood in. The light from the fire shone on her face. I longed to be able to draw, to catch the modeling of strong bones, the firm, kind mouth, the level sweep of eyebrows. "It came to me to can some soup today," she said.

She was canning in a water bath. She said she boiled the soup for about "two hours or so," then packed it in the jars and set it in boiling water in a big kettle to process "about an hour or so" longer. It seemed a miracle to me, who always can soup with a stop watch in one hand, and an eye on the clock, to boot.

I had gone in with a very sad heart, but when I left O was marvelously restored. Just a clean, simple kitchen with a wood stove and a quiet, kind woman, and the Connecticut hills outside the window deepening to violet. I hated to go; I wanted to rest in peace there for a long time. I stood on the stone stoop while she hung up the clean steaming dish towel. The men came walking from the barn, silhouetted against the last light, and the smell of hay was in the air. I felt the earth turning under my feet, and I felt a goodness of life above and under all the sad things.
    I did not get the paper hanger.

The September rains are something I just live through. The rain falls straight and dark and heavy and the leaves on every tree and bush are beaten down by the weight. The early-turned leaves are lost now. The rain seems sad, meaning the end of summer days. no comfort to think, now, that the garden needs it; the garden is doing very well as it is. It reminds me of other rain, in other Septembers.

To break away from melancholy it is better to stop peering out the window to see how much harder it is raining, and how dark the sky over the meadow is, blackened pewter now, If you lean out, the air is as hard to breath as if you were swimming under water.

This is the time to build up the fire, even if it is not cold. The leaping ruddy flames give a brightness to the dim room and the heat dries the air. A cup of hot tea and a toasted biscuit with cheese bubbling on it, are cheering.

I don't see how this month can be so exciting and at the same time so sad. It is like the second-act curtain in the play of summer. and every day you feel like begging the play to go a little longer, before the floodlights go out, and summer is gone.
But there is excitement too. The dramatic first flame of maple, the burning gold of the goldenrod, the coming of the first blue wild asters and the richness of ripening pumpkins. Even the air seems to have color in it; one breathes the color, and the heart beats with it.

I wish we could pack up this late summer sunlight in jars. If only we could pick it, clamp the bail down on the glass, set the pressure cooker for, say, ten pounds, and process jars and jars of bright, fresh, mellow sun! I can see how it would look with the jars ranged in the fruit cellar beside the chicken and piccalilli and tomato catsup. And on a dark January day we would bring up a quart or so of sunshine and open it and smell again the warm dreamy air of a late - summer day.

Now that autumn is practically here, we begin to look at the diminishing wood pile and plan our trips to the woods after fire material.

We acquired some wood this month at a fearful cost. A small private hurricane descended on us, and in ten minutes took down all the old apple trees in the back yard. Wind and rain made a roaring darkness around the house. A window crashed in and water poured clear across the room, and presently the electric cables to the house were reft away and the place plunged into darkness. The intensity of the hurricane had a curious effect upon everybody. it was terrible and dramatic, and when the great black walnut went down across our road, like a falling leviathan rolling into a deep sea chasm, nobody had any words to express it. We were such unimportant creatures, ant - small in the midst of it.

It was over suddenly. The air was like pale silk. In the sky the clouds boiled away. We went out, and the neighbor boys appeared. The girls volunteered to walk to a phone; they disappeared, and turned up later saying they couldn't get through the road. We had a cold supper by the light of a few candle ends.
Meanwhile the boys came out and mounted the walnut with axes. In the semi - darkness, they swung the heavy tools, striking sparks, and cut a passage through. By ten o'clock the Connecticut Light and Power emergency crew was on hand and, by a floodlight, hooked up temporary cables. It was an inspiring sight. After the devastation of the hurricane, these men proved all over again the ability of human creatures to combat disaster. Up in the tangled branches, around swinging live wires, working in the night, they got the service on. Then they cheerfully went away, promising to come back in the morning and rebuild the whole line.

When day came I looked out on the back yard and felt sure my heart was broken. All the lovely old apple trees, so sweet with bloom in the spring, were sprawled on the grass. Only two were left at the edge of the lawn. The hand of the storm had split the trunks in half, and the yard was so tangled one could not even walk across it. But the boys came over from our neighbor's farm, and a group of boys from the girl's crowd volunteered to help, and the sound of axes began again. They worked all morning, college boys and farm boys, and by noon the worst was over. The college boys were blistered, but the farm boys weren't even breathed.

By the time I had got over weeping and emerged from my room, it was time for dinner. So we fed fourteen ravenous people in the barbecue. We took everything we had in the house and made a hasty picnic. In spite of the tragic loss of our trees, we recovered enough to enjoy the young people and their gaiety. The college boys gave most of their attention to the farm boys, admiring them wholeheartedly for the way they could cut, saw and fell dangerous split trunks. The girls meekly passed bread and jelly and sliced meat and salad to the obviously superior sex. It was a man's day.

It is time to think of fall cleaning. I know all about the scientific way of doing one room at a time the year round and never doing the whole house at once, spring and fall, but I ask myself, Then when is the house all done? Think of never having that blissful moment of sitting down, aching and worn out, to be sure, but finished! The other way is too much like never dressing up entirely, but putting on one fresh thing each day. I'd rather give myself up to the business, all in one fell swoop. But I do admit it is a help to get the closets out of the way ahead of the main attack. And the desk drawers. And do on a rainy day all the odd jobs, like fixing the broken curtain rod and cleaning the elbow's of the dog's favorite chair.

But the real fall cleaning must go until the dark weather. The September roads are calling, glorious with goldenrod, blue with chicory, red with swamp maples. The real way to use time now is to pack a basket and climb the hill to the old orchard with a few cockers hunting madly up and down and around and about. A small fire will fry new - laid eggs until the edges crinkle, and split buns will toast. If there is a bit of bacon, the meal becomes Olympian. A picnic is always better, too, with  what we call "dibs and dabs" - a bowl of cottage cheese (with olive oil stirred in until it is soft), dill pickles with a faint tinge of garlic, red - current preserves, celery fresh from the garden. coffee is best made on the spot, and cookies or little cakes make the easiest desert to manage.
After the picnic is over, the family can range the woodland beyond the orchard, gathering dry fallen wood to carry home. Or sit in the warm sun and read poetry - poetry that is dreamy and still and bright as music -

I like to read aloud almost anything of De la Mare, for his words are strung with enchantment. and I think he is the cockers' favorite poet, because the sound of the music is pleasant and lovely to sensitive ears.

In the Garden at Stillmeadow

Honey ought to like that one especially, with the gold of evening in her own hair. And Snow has golden ears, too. When sunset comes, the cool air flows over the orchard, and it is time to rake out the ashes, pour water on them, and go home. Everyone can face the next day's hard work better for an interval of serenity. I read so many articles on nervous tension and anxiety and fatigue these days. People have been strained too long beyond natural stresses and strains of living. My recipe for trouble and knotted nerves is simple, but it works. Go on a picnic on a cloudless blue day. Sit on the warm, rich earth that mothers us all, let the soft wood - cool breeze blow in your hair. Eat everything you can hold. Read a little poetry. If possible, take a couple of dogs along.

City people can picnic too. One of the best picnics I've known was on a Brooklyn roof, with the great river dark silver below and the lights of New York coming slowly out against the blue of evening. There was chicken and a green salad and rye bread in a basket, and it was a beautiful picnic.
when I am away from Stillmeadow and come in sight of the little white house again, I must have a certain expression on my face. for nicely always says, "Yes Mamma, it's still there."
I expect this sums it up pretty well. The feeling a woman has for her home place. The drudgery that goes with housework, the never - ending labor that is involved, the tiredness, the routine - clean, wash, cool, clean, wash, cook - how easily all these slip from our hearts in a single moment of realization. Possibly no words could be more sweet to the heart than these:

   "Yes, Mamma, it's still there."

After supper last night I went out under the apple trees to look at the moon. It was one of those hours when the world is so lovely I can hardly bear it. All the rich and beautiful things there are come home to my heart at once. Sensation is an ache. If there was nothing lovely but the deep serene evening sky, that would be enough, I think. But there are the trees, heavy with leaves, there are the roses opening in silence and beauty under the moon.

There is the grass itself, strong enough to bear the heavy feet of mankind and yet to grow, to be mowed, and grow again. There are the vegetables, and every one different, a whole world of taste and texture to bless the hunger of man. I am almost dizzy with thinking about how the crisp cabbage can be so different from the melting sweet of ripe tomatoes; how the golden tender wax beans grow beside the sturdy round onions with their compact rings, translucent and heady.

As if that were not enough, sounds assail the ear with mystery and magic. I heard a fox bark on the distant hill. I heard the soft stamping of a horse in the neighbor's barn. I heard the brook.

Color alone would be enough of beauty for the world, I thought, sitting down on the terrace. Surely, it would take all my life to have enough of that pale, pale green that sometimes lies along the horizon when the sun has gone. Or the cool dark amber of  brook water over stones. Or the faint ivory in the heart of a white rose.

A thousand textures have their burden of beauty too. The smooth suave feel of a petal rubbed between the fingers, the softness of a spaniel's coat, the hard, good sensation of a stone in the hand, the incredible feeling of a cobweb, which is hardly texture at all but the dream of texture. Wool and silk and ivory and ice - the mind cannot call them all up at once.

Scents - there are the special evocators of memory. Almost any smell will bring a whole train of remembered hours with it. Violets - one whiff of violets carries me magically back to a field of violets I walked in twenty years ago. Smoke of burning leaves - a whole enchanted autumn lives in that odor. White sweet clover -
All this physical beauty of the earth is not half, either. Music and poetry, the remembrance of things past, love and friendship - all the infinite riches of the mind and soul itself are spread for us as we move through the world.

A cool wave of air from the heart of the meadow came to me and I filled my lungs with it. I turned back to the house, white with moonlight, and I thought, Yes, in spite of all, I am in love with life. There is more beauty than we can measure in this old world of ours. There is surely more beauty than we can measure in a single night.

Blue is the color I love the best, and blue is September's color. Blue skies, softer, purer blue, blue gentians, blue chickory by the roadside, blue grapes in the arbor, and over everything that dreamy blue haze that comes over the woods at twilight.

The second late blooming of the dark delphinium comes now, too, just before the frost. Of course the leaves begin to turn, and the harvest fields are a thousand tints of gold, but in New England October is the month for rioting color and in September summer lingers on past the mid - month time.

There is a kind of enchantment about a tranquil blue morning. I feel as if something wonderful might happen at any minute; and on the other hand, the day itself is a wonderful happening. Warm, and yet not hot, cool enough but not cold, this is really the way weather should be, I tell Esme as I get breakfast.
"Siamese do not care for the cold," she says, stretching a brown paw. "Personally, I'll take the hottest day in August and sit in the sun and be really comfortable."  But Tigger is an all - weather cat. He is just like the inscription on the post office - Neither wind not sun, and so on, can stay this swift courier from his appointed mouse.

The cockers will take September as their month, but they would live in an igloo and break ice for their drinking water rather than be two yards away from the family.
Oh lovely blue haze, drifting over the upland pastures! Oh, still and misty meadow! Oh, dreamy September sun, riding at anchor in the blue, blue sky!

"Think not of spring, thou hast thy magic too!"
The Book of Stillmeadow

Continued on the next page

GLADYS TABER: Page 1  / GLADYS TABER: Page 2

If you had the right plug-in, you would be hearing nice music now.

Please take a moment to View and Sign my Guestbook

Email me at: stillmeadow@oocities.com

Dedicated to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Site Menu
Click arrow for drop-down menu. Select page and press "go"

Webpage design by Susan Stanley
I created this background, title and matching graphics especially for this site.
Please do not take.
Copyright © 1997, 1998. Susan Stanley.